Sixth-round of Quaid-e-Azam Trophy begins on Monday

Lahore:With four rounds remaining in the four-day first-class Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, the six teams will fight for every point, when the sixth-round of the tournament commences on Monday, to secure a berth in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final, which will be held at Karachi’s National Stadium from 9 to 13 December.

Table-toppers Central Punjab will be aiming to consolidate their position when they host Northern, who are at the bottom of the points table, at Faisalabad’s Iqbal Stadium.

Central Punjab, who will be without the services of Pakistan Test captain Azhar Ali and young fast-bowler Naseem Shah as they head to Australia for Pakistan’s World Test Championship matches, enter the round at the back of a thrilling draw against Sindh, in which they looked certain to come out as winners for the most part of the final day’s play.

Northern have struggled to click over the course of the tournament. However, they will take heart from a remarkable double-century by Zeeshan Malik.

The 22-year-old struck 216 runs in Northern’s first innings against Southern Punjab at Jinnah Stadium, Sialkot, and registered the fourth best highest individual score this tournament. He followed it up with a second innings score of 59.

Northern will be led by Pakistan U19 captain Rohail Nazir as Umar Amin takes a break from the leadership role to concentrate on his batting – a decision that paid dividends with the left-handed batsman scoring 156.

This will be the season’s last first-class match at Iqbal Stadium.

Quetta’s Bugti Stadium, which saw the return of first-class cricket after 11 years this season, will also be hosting its last fixture of the tournament, which will be live-streamed, when Southern Punjab host Balochistan.

Southern Punjab will take the field under the leadership of Sami Aslam as their regular captain Shan Masood will be taking a flight to Australia on the opening day of their sixth-round fixture.

With an added responsibility on his shoulders, Sami will be hoping to stretch his good form with the bat into this fixture after the left-handed opening-batsman scored a century against Northern.

Southern Punjab are ranked second at the points table and are the only other side than Central Punjab in the tournament, to date, to have won a match.

Balochistan, ranked fourth, will be hoping to fill in the vacuum which will be created by the non-availability of leg-spinner Yasir Shah, who tops the charts for most wicket with 21 scalps.

This absence of Yasir is bound to add more responsibility on left-arm orthodox Mohammad Asghar, who, along with the leg-spinner, returned a four-fer in the first innings of a drawn contest against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa earlier this week at Bugti Stadium.

Balochistan’s Imran Butt will be on the radar of the fans after cracking a brilliant double-century in the last round. The 23-year-old scored 214 which helped him to the second spot in the list of the batsmen with the most runs this tournament.

In the third match of the round, third-ranked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be hosting fifth-ranked Sindh at Abbottabad Cricket Stadium.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s top four batsmen were amongst the run-getters in the previous round with captain Sahibzada Farhan, Israrullah, and Ashfaq Ahmed, who has the most runs this tournament, scoring half-centuries, and Adil Amin putting up a gutsy century.

Sindh will also have to wary of off-spinner Sajid Khan, who took eight wickets, including a five for 36 in the second innings, against Balochistan earlier this week.

Sindh must have run down the best possible back up options ahead of the sixth round after Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq and Kashif Bhatti left the side for the national duty.

But, that Sindh edged out in securing a draw against Central Punjab at Faisalabad was due to Sarfaraz Ahmed’s fighting second innings half-century, which would have uplifted the Sindh’s captain confidence.

That coupled with the presence of Fawad Alam, Saad Ali, Khurram Manzoor and a young and upcoming Omair Bin Yousuf in the batting lineup will make getting Sindh batsmen out a daunting proposition.

All three matches will begin at 1000 at their respective venues.

Quaid-e-Azam Trophy sixth-round fixtures (4-7 November)

Central Punjab v Northern, Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad

Southern Punjab v Balochistan, Bugti Stadium, Quetta

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa v Sindh, Abbottabad Cricket Stadium, Abbottabad